Peters gains; do working families?

There's been a political ad by the Service Employees International Union that's been running recently that claims, "With Terri Lynn Land, Michigan's working families just keep falling behind." Putting aside the SEIU's lack of credibility brought about by its being fined over the hiding of more than $9 million in campaign finance disclosures during a failed bid to have Michigan's Constitution changed in 2012, I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt and check out its claim by seeing how working families have fared under the reign of senatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Gary Peters.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's statistics, over the last five years, the lowest 20 percent of earners (those earning $20,000 and less) suffered a decrease in their incomes of nearly 6 percent. In fact, the only group to not suffer a loss over those five years was the top 10 percent of wage-earners (those earning $150,000 or more). That group barely broke even, with an income increase of less than 0.5 percent. So, how did the middle class do with Gary Peters and the Democrats in charge during this time? How's an average income LOSS of 3 percent grab ya? This data is especially disturbing when you consider that five years ago, we were in the deepest depths of the "great recession." Things have only gotten worse from there.

So how did Gary Peters do financially over that same time period? After all, he claims to have taken a substantial loss due to the "great recession" too. According to Ballotpedia.org, Mr. Peters' net worth has increased from $2 million prior to the "great recession" to $2.8 million currently. In other words, he's recovered all his prior losses, and added a whopping 45 percent increase to that! Taken as a yearly percentage, his net worth has INCREASED 9 percent per year.

It seems that with Gary Peters and the Democrats, families have already fallen behind and will continue falling behind. …Unless of course, you're in Gary Peters' family.

Eric Havenhill

Brighton Township

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